Key components of China's Sky Eye have been domestically produced
FAST has replaced its domestically produced steel cables, with 6 nearly 4,000-meter cables ensuring the stable operation of China's Sky Eye The domestic substitution has been verified through iterations, improving supply chain security and continuing to track installation progress
The National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently stated that the Fivehundredmeter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, "China's Eye" (FAST), is replacing six giant steel wire ropes with a total length of nearly 4,000 meters, and the work is expected to continue until late June this year.
The wire ropes are one of the key components for the operation of the feed cabin. The feed cabin weighs about 30 tons and needs to rely on these six wire ropes to achieve highprecision positioning and tracking within a range of 206 meters at an altitude of 140 meters, so the material is subject to extremely stringent fatigue life requirements.
Since its commissioning in 2016, FAST has been using imported wire ropes. To promote domestic substitution, the team conducted multiple rounds of operation and fatigue tests on domestic sample ropes. The iterative validation was finally completed and successfully passed in August 2025. The latest six domestically produced wire ropes have been delivered to the site and are expected to support the stable operation of the equipment and the security of the supply chain.